comet takes the long way but it never actually forgets the way back three hundred years looks like abandonment from where you're standing but from out here it's just the shape of the orbit nobody accused the moon of leaving when it turns away for half a month they measured my absence and called it permanent turns out permanent was just a word for "not yet" I was never gone, I was just on the far side of a very long ellipse same trajectory, different distance, that's all a return ever is maybe leaving was never the opposite of coming back maybe it was always just the first half of the same sentence I always come back, I always come back even when the whole sky says I'm gone I always come back, I always come back this was never optional, I was always coming home underneath, a four-note horn motif introduced and repeated as the central riff, festive maybe leaving was never the opposite of coming back maybe it was always just the first half of the same sentence I always come back, I always come back even when the whole sky says I'm gone I always come back, I always come back this was never optional, I was always coming home I DIDN'T DISAPPEAR, I WAS JUST TAKING THE LONG ROUTE HOME EVERY METER YOU COUNTED WHILE I WAS GONE STILL BELONGED TO ME CALL IT ABSENCE IF THE MATH MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER I CALL IT THE PART OF THE ORBIT YOU HADN'T SEEN YET so let the whole three hundred years count as one single motion I never stopped moving toward this exact point in the sky some returns take a lifetime and still arrive precisely on time I always come back — I told you, I always come back the sky remembers where I'm supposed to be and for once, arriving felt like the whole point
